


Rule of Threes

by geckoch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Huddling For Warmth, Infidelity, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2020-10-10 05:01:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoch/pseuds/geckoch
Summary: When a walk in the woods goes awry, Bitty and Tater work together to survive.





	1. Chapter 1

The plump, red checkerberries were easily visible from the path, with the sun making them almost glow. The bush was farther away than they first thought, but it was worth it. By the time they had picked it clean, B's bag was heavy with berries.

Before they could turn back, a cluster of jack-in-the-pulpits caught Tater's eye. And he'd heard that in America.... 

"B, look!" he cried in delight, pointing to the morels. It was the first time he'd found any since the summer he'd been drafted. Just like back home, once he saw the first, their particular color seemed to pop out of the background, and he spotted more by the second.

"Oh, gosh, is it safe?" B was confident in knowing his herbs and berries, but mushrooms always made him a little nervous.

"Yeah, morels are most easy mushroom." Tater bent and cut the nearest with his trusty mushroom-hunting knife, then in half to show B. "See? If inside is hollow like that, is real morel."

With B beaming at him, Tater began the harvest in earnest, cutting morels as he spotted them. _Walking_ to them as he spotted them, with B trailing behind, engrossed. By the time they stopped his basket was half full of morels and B was looking wonderfully impressed, which was all that had been on his mind as he walked and turned and turned and walked with his eyes on the ground.

The bush had been visible from the path. The path was not so visible from where they were now and neither, stripped of berries, was the bush. It was such a stupid way to get lost, like something a couple of children would do. They looked at each other and, without a word took out their phones.

"No signal," B said, nervous. "You got anything, honey?"

When he pushed the button, his screen stayed black, and he flushed. "I used my battery taking pictures."

B scooted a little closer. "We didn't go far. Did we? We couldn't have gone far."

"I don't know." Tater swallowed hard. This was no time to start wandering around blindly, hoping to see where they'd come from. They'd made all the mistakes they could afford today, and there weren't many hours until sundown. "We need to be careful.”

“You’re not supposed to move, are you? If you get lost,” said B, looking nervous and twitchy, like he didn’t really believe it, like he was sure if they just started walking they’d have to find the trail soon.

“Right, no moving,” Tater said firmly. “If we move, we do-“ he couldn’t even remember what it was actually called in Russian, if there even was a real term for his possibly misremembered concept. Radial search was what he was coming up with, and fuck if he knew how to say _that_ in English. He took a deep breath and tried to pull an explanation together. “We don’t want to get more lost. To look for trail, we should go out in-“ he held up the index finger of his left hand and used his right to sketch lines coming out, then going back in, around the central point. “Keep this place the middle.”

There was understanding dawning in B’s eyes. “Like how they’ll be looking for us from the trail, spreading out.”

“Right,” Tater said, relieved. “Yes, just like that.” 

B looked at the sky. “That could take more time then we got sunlight.” He chewed his lip. “If there’s a chance we’re spending the night out here, maybe we shouldn’t spend any time on searching. Just start getting ready now.”

Tater looked too, wanting to see something different, to come to the conclusion that, no, of course they could find the trail without a night sleeping in the woods. It was just a little walk, something to take their minds off blown playoffs and senior thesis crunch time for an afternoon, maybe bring home some foraged treats to share with Zimmboni. They couldn’t possibly have gotten themselves so lost as to end up sleeping here. 

But he saw the same as B. He didn’t know how long they’d spent chasing morels or how far they‘d traveled. The size of the mushroom bounty weighing down his basket suggested it could be longer and farther than he wanted to believe. Maybe they could find the trail before dark, but maybe not, and the longer they spent looking the less prepared they’d be for the cold spring night. 

“I think so too,” he said, turning his eyes from the sky to what was around them. A partially fallen tree, caught at an angle in the crotch of a neighbor, caught his eye. They could build off that, lean some branches against it. And lay some down under it, too - Tater was no wilderness survival expert, but he knew they needed to get off the ground if they wanted to keep warm. There were pines around, if he could get a few smaller branches off they could use those for blankets and a floor both. 

“Maybe under that we can make, uh, shitty, tiny cottage.” Was cottage even a word B would know, or was that just a Canadian thing? Did they have dachas in Georgia?

Luckily, B was nodding. “Good idea. Do you know how to start a fire, honey?”

Tater wobbled a hand in the air. “I’ve seen it, but never did it.”

“Me too. I’m gonna get some tinder together, see if I can’t make it work.”

“Okay. I’ll start our cottage.” He gave B’s shoulder a squeeze. “Like vacation, yeah?”

“Right,” B said, determined. He smiled up at Tater and patted his hand. “We’ll make it real cozy.”

Tater gathered big branches while B gathered whatever felt dry, both careful to keep the site of their temporary home in sight. While Tater laid the first couple branches, he noticed that there were a couple little saplings under their trees. They weren’t very strong, but he thought laying just a few big structural branches up top, with the saplings filling in the gaps, would make a good shell to lay pine boughs over.

“B, what do you think?” he called.

B looked up from the stick he was attempting to spin against another stick, without much success. “Oh, that’s coming together nice, honey! Can I borrow your knife a minute? I think if I carve a little notch-“

“Here, B.”

“Thanks, honey.“

B set to whittling and Tater returned to scrounging for branches to be their mattress. There was a big maple branch he dragged over leaves and all. He found a couple really nice, straight young birch trees down, each as thick as his arm, and he swapped out some of his more dubious upright pieces for those. 

When Tater noticed himself sweating, he forced himself to slow down. Getting wet and losing water were the last things he needed to be doing. Take a break, he told himself, drink some tea. 

He unclipped the thermos from his beltloop. It wasn’t a particularly fancy one, just the kind they sold at the arena. He mostly bought it because he liked how the logo looked and the fact that it had a strap and clip to hang it off stuff. It did its job, though - the tea was still pretty warm. He sipped it and leaned against a big birch tree, looking over their progress so far.

The sun was noticeably lower, but the skeleton of their shelter was just about where it needed to be, with a raised bed under the half fallen tree and a wedge of space walled off with the branches he’d leaned against it. If he could cover everything in pine boughs, he thought it would be a pretty nice little spot to bed down. 

Meanwhile, B’s fire making tools were looking a lot more sophisticated, if not yet successful. His little nest of tinder, before mostly dry pine needles, now included long curls of wood he’d shaved off his two sticks. One stick was braced between B’s feet and he’d carved a flat side with a notch in it. The other stick, he’d sharpened to a point, and smoothed out the sides some. The point fit the notch, the smoothed sides let B spin it better as he rubbed his palms together around it, but there was no sign of smoke yet. Still, it looked like it _could_ work. 

“B, looks so cool.” 

“Thanks.” B sounded like he was working too hard spinning that stick, but Tater didn’t see how else he could do it.

Tater plucked the knife from beside him. “I’m cut some pine, for walls.”

“Good luck, honey.”

“You too.”

There weren’t good pine boughs down, but a combination of prying, stomping, and cutting did the job on some of the smaller branches, which still fanned out to a generous size. The needles were long and soft, easy on his hands so long as he didn’t prick himself head on, and he thought they’d make good insulation. 

It didn’t feel like long, but the clouds were starting to turn pink by the time their three walled hut was well and truly coated with pine, inside and out. As he wiped his hands, now sticky with resin, on his jeans, Tater tried to imagine what it would be like to sleep there. He thought he had enough pine on there to soften the log floor and that there should be enough room, barely, for both of them. They’d have to get pretty close, but they ought to do that anyways, for warmth. 

Tater could feel the blush on his neck, thinking about that. Sleeping cuddled up to anyone, let alone someone he was close to, wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence in his adult life. Dating on an NHL player’s schedule, in a foreign country, Tater knew plenty of guys managed but he didn’t think he’d be able to cope. He’d had his share of one night stands - only with women, the one time he’d actually made a date over Hornet he’d lost his nerve - but most of them opted not to stay the night once they heard what time he planned to wake up. B was a friend rather than a lover, but it was hard not to imagine what it would feel like tonight, spooned together with little B in his arms.

His eyes turned involuntarily to B, who was diligently rubbing his hands together. If only looks could start a fire, the way B was glaring at his uncooperative sticks would have done it already.

All Tater’d worn over his T-shirt was his souvenir flannel from when he went to see the giant Paul Bunyan up in Bangor, but B had bundled up for their walk in his down jacket. Now B’s coat was off, pooled beside him, and Tater could see the sweat under his arms and standing out on his neck. There was a small, blackened hole in the wood about a centimeter away from where he was spinning his stick.

Fuck, how long had he been trying now? How much water and how many calories had he used? “B?”

“I almost had it, swear to God I did,” he panted. 

Tater squatted beside him and laid his hands on B’s arms, stilling him gently and turning his palms up as the stick toppled. Tater hissed at the friction burns he saw. “Oh, B.”

“It’s nothing,” B lied, despite the fact that Tater could see clear plasma welling up through his abraded skin. “I just gotta push through. We need this fire, honey.”

Pushing through was one thing when there was a trainer waiting meters away, another entirely in the middle of the woods.

“Wait, okay? I’m think.” 

There had to be a better way, something that wouldn’t scrape the skin off anyone’s palms. Tater touched a finger to the junction between the sticks and pulled it away quickly - it was hot, hot enough that he thought B was right that he almost had it. 

Maybe if he took a turn, Tater thought. Maybe fresh hands and fresh arms would be enough to finish the job. But he’d seen how fast B had been spinning that stick - he hadn’t been flagging, despite the state of his hands. 

Maybe some kind of mechanical assistance. “If we had gears, like bicycle gears, we could do faster.”

“Or a band and a bigger wheel - that’s how it is on a motor.”

Tater was still staring at B’s poor hands, and at the idea of a band something caught his eye that made him jolt upright with the inspiration. B was wearing a paracord bracket (in Falcs colors, of course) that Zimmboni had given him to take on their little adventures. That was a good band, alright, they didn’t have a big wheel, but....

“What is it, honey?”

“B, your, um-“ he tapped it, flustered, not wanting to search for words in fear of losing his train of thought. He could see what he wanted in his mind’s eye. He held the stick upright in the groove while B unraveled his bracelet. “That’s good,” Tater said, once he had a little under two meters free. It would only be unwieldy to have more. He took the cord and wrapped it around the stick, then paused. He needed to hold it upright somehow, but it would be spinning fast. 

“What can I do, honey?”

“I, uh, I’ll pull these,” he said, miming pulling the ends of the string in turn. “See? Like I’m big wheel, but I need this to stay.” He held the stick extra straight and planted firmly in the notch in the stick below.

“Oh!” B’s eyes lit up. “Here, I can-“ he fished in his little firewood cairn and found a piece with a big fissure splitting it nearly in two. He planted it on top of the stick and pressed down to hold it in place. It looked stable, with that big groove in the wood. “Try it like that,” he said, sounding eager and excited now, instead of desperate.

Tater knew how he felt. This might work, he thought giddily. He picked up the two ends of the cord, one hand gripping most of the bracelet, still, and slid his loop up to the middle of the stick. It stayed firm when he pulled it tight. The sun was almost down, but when he pulled one end of the cord the stick spun even quicker than he’d hoped, and when he pulled the cord the other way it spun back just as smoothly.

Once he got into a rhythm it was easy, pulling one side and the other in long strokes, like an arms-only elliptical machine. The light was fading fast, though, and Tater was starting to wonder if they’d be able to see smoke if they managed to make some.

“There! That’s glowing.” 

Tater stopped at B’s cry and pulled the stick away. Now he could see the glow too. 

B picked up the bottom stick, heedless of his hands, tipped it over the little nest of wood shavings and dried pine needles, and tapped it until the tiny, glowing coal fell into the middle of it. Tater held his breath while B blew gently on it, cupping his hands around the nest, trying to coax the ember to life.

All of a sudden, bright flames blossomed up, illuminating B’s face as he broke into a grin. 

“Oh my lord, we did it.” He was reaching for twigs as he spoke, flinching at the touch.

“B, let me. Rest your hands.” Tater took the twigs, feeding the small ones to their fire first, feeling more confident with every twig that caught. Their little fire was going to make it. It was close enough to their lean-to to keep them warm once they built it up, but not so close they should be in too much danger from it.

Tater began to lean a ring of finger width sticks up against the fire, and they actually caught. They beamed at each other. 

“I can feel it,” Tater said, carefully adding more sticks. Now he was being careful not for the fire’s sake but for his fingers’. The night, and it was night now, was staring to cool off, but the fire was already warming them. 

“We’re just on a camping trip now, ain’t we, honey?” 

“That’s right, perfect vacation.”

As Tater fed the fire, he started to become aware of what else needed feeding. Fuck, he was starving. His body was used to trying to pack in close to seven thousand calories a day, largely in protein. B was maybe closer to five thousand, at his size, but he had to be feeling it too. They had their checkerberries and morels, a lucky windfall, but still nowhere close to the amount of fuel they’d usually take in for dinner.

It was a weirdly disorienting thought. They weren’t built for this. They weren’t built for food shortages and they weren’t built for keeping warm. Take a couple of hockey players in peak condition and put them in the woods and they were suddenly in a lot of trouble.

“We should think how much we eat tonight,” Tater said. 

B pulled up their basket and bag, looked at the berries and mushrooms, frowning pensively. “I think we oughta cook up all the morels, even if we save some for breakfast,” he said after a moment. ”Raw, they might not even last that long. Mushrooms go awful fast.” 

Tater nodded, a little shocked that he hadn’t thought of that. He knew that about mushrooms, he’d known that since he couldn’t remember when, but it just hadn’t come to mind. Was it because he was hungry? Tired? Scared? He was starting to understand how people had weird lapses of judgement in situations like this. 

He tried to get his head together, think about their dinner the way he did his meal plan during the season. 

“Tomorrow, we search,” he said, “maybe all day. Long, steady walk, I think for snacks we want berries. Little bit sugar, little bit sugar, little bit sugar, keep us energy all day.” 

That sentence was a mess, he knew it as even as he was trying to put it together, but it had most of the right words in it and B was nodding, so Tater supposed it was intelligible enough to get across what he meant.

“Maybe we oughta save most of our mushrooms for breakfast.” B’s stomach rumbled and he sighed. “I know we’re both hungry as all get out, but ‘one who sleeps, eats,’ or so they say in French 2.”

“Okay, yeah. We eat some, sleep well, and big mushroom breakfast.” He tried to convince himself that it sounded nice. It actually did, at least a little.

“I’ll get us a stick for roasting,” B said, pushing himself to his feet, using fists where he’d usually use palms. 

“I’ll get more wood,” Tater said, and stood too. Their fire needed some bigger branches. “Be careful, yeah? Don’t go too far.”

B nodded, looking serious. “You too, hon.”

Leaving the fire, the world looked dark even under a half moon. He waited. The last thing he needed was to step wrong in the dark and blow out his knee. 

Once his eyes adjusted, the moonlight was bright enough to work by. He peeked back frequently, checking the location of the fire and trying not to lose his night vision doing it. It was starting to cool down fast, which suited him just fine as long as he was moving, but Tater was very glad they’d have a fire to keep them warm while they slept. He found some good pieces, thick branches too short for construction that would be perfect for their fire. 

Returning with his first armful of wood, he could smell roasting mushrooms even before he was close enough to see B, all snuggled up in his coat again despite the fire, slowly turning his stick of skewered morels. Tater picked up speed unconsciously.

“Here, honey,” B said as he approached. Even as Tater was kneeling to put the firewood down, B picked up one of the roasted morels from the basket beside him and held it up to him. Tater didn’t even wait to free up his hands. His lips brushed B’s fingertips as he took the mushroom from his hand, tasting the salt of his sweat along with it.

The morel was tender and tasty, a delicious treat after a hard day. He set the wood down and sat back, chewing slowly, savoring it. As hungry as he was, even that little bite felt like significant nourishment. 

“Mm, B. Even here you’re good cook.”

The fire lit B’s sweet smile in flickering gold. “Thanks, honey. You want another one?”

“One more,” Tater said, reaching into the outstretched basket for a second mushroom. “Then I get us more wood.”

B ate one with him this time. Sitting beside B in the warmth of the fire, smelling the basket of roasted mushrooms, watching the pleasure on B’s face as he enjoyed his own bite, Tater could almost forget the trouble they were in. 

“This is good,” he said, suppressing a mischievous grin. “Next time, we go camping on purpose.”

B threw his head back and laughed. “You got a deal, Mr. Mashkov,” he said, patting Tater’s leg companionably. 

“Alright.” Tater forced himself to stand up. “One more trip, then bed.”

“Okay. I’ll finish roasting these up and put a couple logs on.”

The energy boost he felt from the two mushrooms had to be mostly mental, but it made his task easier the second time around. It didn’t feel like long at all before he had an armful of wood. The fire was bigger and brighter than before, and Tater could feel the warmth as soon as he got within a few meters of it. 

Finally, he arrived at the fire. B was feeding it slowly, the basket of cooked mushrooms set to the side. He added his armful of wood to their pile and stretched. What he wanted now was two more mushrooms, then to curl up with B in their warm shelter and go to sleep. 

“Alright, hon?”

“Yeah.” He sat down beside B, knocking shoulders with him. “Your hands?”

B shrugged, looking away from him. “Ain’t so bad.”

He’d insist on looking tomorrow, Tater decided. However B’s hands were doing, there wasn’t much they could do about it tonight.

“Little more morels, then we sleep?”

“Alright,” B said, passing the basket. “Lord, I am plum tuckered out.”

They each took a mushroom, fingers brushing in the middle. Tater was still hungry and he knew B must be too, but he hoped another couple mushrooms would trick his body into letting him sleep . 

They are slowly, trying to make their snack feel like more than it was. Tater took a swig of tea and passed his thermos to B.

“Thanks, hon.” B took a drink, then moved to pass the thermos back. Tater gestured at him to drink more. B had been working hard too, but his own water bottle - another present from Zimmboni, a fancy one liter titanium one, chosen after an endearing amount of research - was still sitting accusingly in the side pocket of his bag.

“It really is beautiful out here,” said B, looking up at the sky and taking another sip. “I thought where I grew up was country, but I never seen so many stars.” B turned to him, his smile soft. “You got good stars at home?”

Tater shook his head. “Not like this. But my baba’s house - I used to stay a lot when my parents both working. Most stars I ever see.”

“I wish I could visit,” B said wistfully.

Tater’s chest tightened.

“So do I. She’d love you.” He put an arm around B and pulled him against his side, giving him a little shake. “A week there, you get so fat.”

Laughing, B hugged him. “Let’s get some sleep, hon.”

They laid a couple extra logs on their fire, pulled their basket of cooked mushrooms and bag of berries between the fire and the shelter, then turned to their little nest. Tater crawled in first, backing himself up as far as he could without jarring the makeshift walls. The pine mattress didn’t feel half bad, not with a thick layer of those long, delicate needles, soft except at the very tips.

B paused before following, then unzipped his coat.

“B?” 

“This’ll do us more good as a blanket.” 

B crawled in with him, scooting back flush and pulling the jacket over them both, his warm, strong little body fitting so naturally against him. As Tater slipped his arms around him, he wondered if B could feel his heart racing. If he could, all he did was lay his hands over Tater’s, turned awkwardly as if to avoid touching his injured palms.

“Goodnight, honey.”

“Night, B.”

Curled up around little B in their warm little nest, it wasn’t so hard to fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Sun and birdsong woke Bitty. The cold was nipping at his nose and his hands ached and he desperately needed to pee, but the rest of him was cozy warm tucked up against Tater and he felt more comfortable and rested than he would have thought possible when they first decided to sleep out here. 

He also felt hungrier. Lord, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so long without a square meal. Ever since he got serious about hockey, either he was desperately struggling to maintain his weight during the season or he was trying his dangdest to bulk up during the summer (one of these years it was gonna work, too, he was gonna hit twenty-two and start packing on that Nathan Gerbe muscle). And if he was feeling this bad, poor Tater must be starving. 

Well, they would both be fine, Bitty told himself firmly as he reluctantly wiggled out from under the comforting weight of Tater’s arm. They were going home today, and this would all be a funny anecdote about the little scare they’d had and their impromptu camping trip. Tater would tell it best, Bitty knew, he’d have all the boys in stitches. He tried not to think about how worried Jack must be now, and just think of how his face would light up when Tater got to the part about how his paracord had saved the day.

Bitty was feeling a little stiff, but the bed Tater had built them had been shockingly comfortable, and of course Tater was big and warm. As he stretched, he imagined the Falcs TV episode about their adventure. Tater would tell the story, and maybe they could show off their new and improved fire starting technique and roast some mushrooms.

He paused, caught by the morning chill, and knelt by the mouth of their shelter to pick up his discarded jacket. Carefully, he tucked it around Tater’s shoulders. There.

Bitty added a couple logs to the embers, in case they wanted to heat up their breakfast, and walked a little ways from their camp to pee. Not out of sight, though. He’d learned that lesson.

Even opening his jeans proved to be painful. His fingers weren’t so bad, but moving them jostled his palms, which were stiff and sticky. It felt like they were trying to scab over, even though he hadn’t bled. 

He was just tucking himself back in his pants when he heard Tater yawn.

“Morning, B.”

He caught the yawn and smothered it in the crook of his arm. “Morning, hon.” 

Buttoning his jeans, hands still painful but he was getting used to it, he turned to see Tater emerging from their little lean-to with sleep tousled hair and one cheek pink. Bitty couldn’t help his smile.

“You ‘bout ready for breakfast?”

Tater’s stomach growled so loudly Bitty could hear it from yards away. “I could eat,” he said, deadpan.

The logs had reinvigorated their little fire and Tater speared a couple mushrooms on their roasting stick, warming them up. Bitty sat close beside him. It was a chilly morning and he felt warmer and safer with their thighs knocking together. To make things even better, Tater draped Bitty’s coat around his shoulders.

“There. Your hands hurt?”

“They’re a little sore,” Bitty admitted reluctantly. 

Tater didn’t look convinced. “Can I see?”

Seeing there was no getting out of it, Bitty turned his palms up. He’d been trying not to look himself, if he was honest, but it wasn’t so terrible. 

“Ouch, B.“ Very gently, Tater took Bitty’s left hand in his right, turning and inspecting. The touch made Bitty feel— he didn’t know how it made him feel. And-

“Oh, the mushrooms!” The roasting stick was bobbing perilously close to a high flame. 

Hastily, Tater pulled their mushrooms out of danger and blew on them. After a tentative touch, he pulled one off the stick. 

“Here, B.” He held the mushroom up to Bitty’s lips. “Rest your hands.” 

Bitty couldn’t bring himself to turn down the offer, not with the relief he felt at the idea of not having to move his fingers for a while longer. He took the roasted morel gingerly between his teeth, trying not to slobber on Tater’s fingers or anything embarrassing. 

It was hot and tasty and wonderfully satisfying. 

“Mm, thank you,” Bitty said, licking his lips. 

Tater covered his mouth to mumble, “Welcome,” past his own mushroom.

Once they’d finished, Tater speared another two mushrooms to warm and the process began again. Bitty leaned against him. 

“Now, after breakfast, how are we gonna do this?”

“We should go out and back, different directions. Straight lines - I never try, but I know how. You use three trees, make a line to follow.”

Bitty nodded, he’d heard that one too. 

“We need keep track to where we’ve been. Whole point is to be-“ he gestured, trying to conjure up a word that wouldn’t come. “Fuck. B, what’s word? Say you scout team, you want to check every player, go down roster, be....” 

“Thorough?” 

He shook his head but said, “Close enough.”

Bitty knew from Tater’s expression that it was going to bug him until he thought of it, close enough or not. 

They sat in silence while Tater finished warming the mushrooms. Deep in thought about ways to keep track of their search, Bitty forgot to be embarrassed at taking one from Tater’s fingers in small, careful bites. It was hot and good, with just a little bit of caramelization starting around the edges, a crispy seasoning to accent the meat of the mushroom. 

Even that little bit of variation in texture and flavor made it feel more filling, tricking his body into believing this was a real meal. They ought to pick some greens for lunch, Bitty thought, watching Tater skewer the next pair of mushrooms. Something to stretch out the checkerberries and make them feel more satisfying. Too bad it wasn’t nut season, there were beech trees galore out here. 

That made him think of carvings on beeches, all the hearts and initials they’d seen along the trail. They could mark where they’d been, maybe even point the way back to camp. And for the other direction-

“How about if we carve on a beech tree to show which directions we’ve tried? And we could count paces, keep track of how far. Mark up trees every so far to help us keep on track.”

“That’s good, yes!” Tater threw an arm around his shoulders, leaning his head against Bitty’s as if they were on the ice. “Nice one, B.”

They took their time finishing breakfast. There was something very relaxing about eating this way. The repeated steps, the slowing down necessitated by warming each batch, all combined to turn the simple act of eating into a ritual, clearing Bitty’s mind and focusing his attention on his senses. The sunlight filtering through clouds and trees, birds singing and the fire crackling, the warmth of the fire and the solid press of Tater’s thigh against his, the dull, sticky burn of his palms, the smells of the woods and the campfire and mushrooms and their sweat, the texture of the morels and the faint brush of Tater’s fingertips against his lips, the nutty, smoky taste of the flame-roasted morel, the sting of smoke in his eyes when the breeze shifted, all of it seemed almost luxuriously clear and sharp. Listening to Tater’s deep, steady breaths and watching the easy rhythm and slow, liquid grace of his movements, Bitty thought maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling something. Maybe this would be a special memory for both of them, when they got home. 

By the time the mushrooms were gone, Bitty felt warm and satisfied. Not totally full, but still good. Ready to face the day. The sun was out and it was warming up enough that the idea of leaving the fire didn’t seem so bad, especially when they were going to be walking. 

They stood, stretched. Bitty slipped his jacket on, with an assist from Tater, and managed to work the zip with only minimal discomfort.

“Alright, Mr. Mashkov, which way do we try first?” 

It wasn’t a surprise to Bitty how fast the answer came, Tater’d surely been thinking on it.

“Our trail was loop, right? So, if we’re inside, it doesn’t matter. Only if we’re outside.”

Bitty nodded. He hadn’t thought it through until Tater laid it out, but of course he was right, there was a fifty-fifty chance that they had nothing to worry about at all.

“B, can you remember what direction we were, before we went off?”

Bitty thought hard, closed his eyes and tried to picture the scene, where the sun had been, the shadows, but it was no good. He shook his head, too frustrated with himself to voice it aloud. It had been his idea to go for those damn checkerberries, and he hadn’t even been paying enough attention to remember where the sun was coming from.

“Me neither. It wouldn’t help so much anyways, after I made us turn like-“ he traced a finger in the air. Higgledy-piggledy, that was the phrase Bitty would have provided if Tater didn’t sound so pissed at himself.

“Honey, no.” Bitty gripped his bicep, too distressed to see his own self-recriminations aimed at Tater to worry about the pain in his palm. “Don’t you dare put anything on yourself you wouldn’t put on me, Alexei Mashkov. We’re both grown men, ain’t we?” 

Tater nodded stiffly like he couldn’t quite make his voice work. Bitty thought he knew how he felt. It had only just hit him as he was saying it aloud that the same went for himself. They were in this together, the good and the bad. 

After a moment, Tater’s eyes met Bitty’s. “North-” He swallowed, then continued, voice stronger, “The trail loop, it was longer east-west. So north and south, I think we try first. Bigger target.”

A sudden warm impulse struck Bitty and he hugged him, brief but tight. “Thank the Lord we’re together, honey. I would be dead of exposure already, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

“Me too,” Tater said, one arm still around Bitty’s shoulder. He gave him a squeeze. “But we’re good team, yeah?”

“Yeah. We are.”

They turned north, which to Bitty meant putting the rising sun on his right. Tater put it to the right and then some, nearly at his back. They looked at each other.

“B, your hometown has what latitude?

“Just south of the thirty five. Yours?”

“Just north of fifty five.”

“Maybe we oughta split the difference.”

“Yeah, think so.”

There was a nice big beech near their shelter and Tater walked to the side they’d decided was north and carved a big C on it and then, for good measure, added an N under that.

“You wanna sight trees or count paces?” Bitty asked. 

“I’ll sight,” Tater said, already looking out at the trees.

“Alright. You lead the way and I’ll keep count.”

They didn’t talk much as they walked. Getting distracted could be very dangerous. 

“That’s a hundred. Keep your sights, honey, I’ll carve.” Bitty plucked the knife from Tater’s belt and turned to the nearest beech to carve their C and N on the north side. His hands protested, but the pain was nothing he couldn’t push through.

Sliding the knife into the sheath on Tater’s belt made Bitty nervous. It felt so much trickier than doing it to himself that he had to lay a hand on Tater’s hip to guide himself. With the warm curve under his hand, it was hard not to notice that Tater didn’t have a whole lot of padding left after playoffs. _Oh, sweetheart, why couldn’t we get lost in fall?_

They walked on another hundred paces and repeated the process. No trail.

“Third time’s the charm?” Bitty asked.

Tater chewed his lip. “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s time to go back, try south. We don’t want to lose our camp.”

Part of Bitty wanted to keep walking straight. Surely they’d hit _something_. But he knew better, and Tater was right. The farther they went, the greater the danger they’d make a mistake and be unable to find their way home.

“Okay. Okay, yeah.” He tried to smile. “Let’s try south.”

Tater looked nervous as he turned and set his sights south. Bitty could sympathize. He had a bad feeling that was only getting worse as he counted.

At one hundred, he saw no sign of their carved tree. _It’s one tree. It’s harder to see one tree than our whole camp,_ he told himself, but he found himself drifting closer to Tater in search of security. By one hundred fifty, he was starting to be really scared.

At two hundred, he gave in to the fear and scooted close, taking Tater’s arm. “Did we- how did we-“ 

“We‘re close, B,” said Tater, but he was pale and squeezing Bitty’s arm tight as he looked around. 

Heart pounding in his throat, Bitty looked too. But he found he couldn’t seem to focus, his eyes kept drifting.

“There!”

Tater’s cry seemed to shock him awake and he pulled himself up straight to follow where Tater was pointing. There, maybe twenty paces to their left, was camp. Laughing in relief, Bitty leaned against him. 

“Thank God for your eyes, honey. Oh, Lord, I thought we were in trouble. That ain’t bad at all.”

“It really worked.” Tater sighed in relief and slung an arm around his shoulders as they walked back to camp. “Next time, we’ll do even better.”

It was amazing how close they had to get before the camp became really hard to miss. _If it was that hard to see so close, maybe we’re not so far from the path after all._

The sun was high now. It wasn’t quite noon, by Bitty’s estimate, but it had to be getting close. He picked up his bag. “Should we take some berries with us this time?”

“Sounds good. Maybe we drink some water, too.”

Bitty was thirsty too, getting really thirsty in fact, but he wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they’d find home today, but if they _didn’t_, well.... He didn’t want to use up the last of their water until he knew where more was coming from. 

“Maybe we ought to wait,” Bitty said. “Try to stretch it so we don’t run out.”

Tater chewed his lip pensively, looking like he wanted to say something, but he nodded. “Okay. There’s some in berries anyways. South?”

“South,” agreed Bitty with a smile. He held out the bag and Tater took a few in hand. They snacked as they walked, and the sweet wintergreen berries really did seem to Bitty to give him an extra boost of energy. 

One hundred paces, two hundred paces, and turn. No sign of the trail and no sign of water. That latter had hardly even occurred to Bitty to worry about this morning, but after finding nothing but more woods in two directions it was starting to seem much more urgent.

This time two hundred paces back took them right into their camp. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t find the path, Bitty reminded himself. They just had to be systematic and -

“Systematic?” Bitty hazarded, remembering the word Tater’d had on the tip of his tongue this morning.

“That’s it! Thanks, B.” Tater pulled him in and leaned his head against his, like they were celebrating on ice. “East next?”

”Alright. Here, hon,” he said, holding out their bag of berries. They both took some. 

The berries were good, but the third time wasn’t the charm. No path. No water except moistening the soil under their feet.

At least they were getting better at their count and sight method. When they walked back a hundred paces, this time they did see their tree, coming back at it almost dead on. 

Off to their right, something else caught Bitty’s eye. “One second, hon, there’s some greenery I want to - yes!” 

There were three nice big skunk cabbages there, and if there was one thing Bitty had learned in Women, Food, and American Culture it was that you could use skunk cabbage for just about anything if you knew how to handle it. _Thank you, Professor Atley._ He dug them up carefully. The ground was muddier here and Bitty was glad, otherwise he could never have gotten the whole system of funny shaped roots out.

It wouldn’t all be edible and it wouldn’t be anything close to the calories they really needed, but the size and weight of the cabbages was comforting as they walked the next hundred steps back.

“We really are getting better at this,” Bitty said, as they approached their camp dead on. 

Finally able to look, Tater turned to him and asked, “What are those, B? I see them around, but I never looked them up.”

“Skunk cabbage. I’ve never had it, but it’s real useful. The young leaves and stalks and roots are edible, but you have to dry them out really well first because they have, well, I don’t remember what they’re made of, but they have these crystals, see-“ 

They took a little break while Bitty babbled everything he could remember about skunk cabbage. They sat together by the embers of their fire, stripping cabbage leaves and laying them across logs. It didn’t look like quite so much food all taken apart and laid flat and remembering that the big leaves would be better as wax paper than as food, but it was something.

“Like burdock?” Tater asked, when Bitty mentioned grinding the roots for flour.

“Can you do that with burdock?” Bitty knew you could eat the roots, but he’d never heard of that.

Tater’s smile was wry. “If you have to.”

It was after noon for sure now, and Bitty was starting to get a headache he knew was dehydration. Still, when Tater said, “B, I really think we should drink,” he couldn’t agree.

“We only have a liter left,” he said, “and we still haven’t found more.”

Tater nodded, but reluctantly. “We should talk after we go west, if we don’t find path.”

“Okay.”

They had another handful of berries each while they walked. Their supply was getting low, but the berries wouldn’t keep long anyways. 

_This has to be it. We’ll find the path and go home and it’ll all be fine._

There was nothing to the west, not even more skunk cabbage. Bitty counted the steps back numbly. There were more directions to try, but he felt a lot less hopeful.

“We should talk about water.”

Bitty nodded. “I think we ought to save it, stretch it out as long as we can.”

“I see what you say, but I think is maybe better to drink some as long as we can. Stay hydrated.”

“Honey, I’m hoping we’ll find the path soon, but if we don’t... it could take a while for rescue to come.”

“But is- when we don’t drink, is bad for everything. Get slow, clumsy, make bad decision.”

“We don’t know where or when we’ll find water again. If we run out of water, slow and clumsy are going to be the least of our problems.”

It was the first time they’d argued in their friendship, and it was over a life of death matter. Tater looked more agitated than Bitty’d ever seen him off the ice and Bitty felt it too, a slow, creeping panic laced with anger. The whole argument felt unfair to him - they could always go from his plan to Tater’s, but never the other way around. 

“We- it’s-“ Tater closed his eyes, breathing hard. “It’s harder to come back. Is same much water in or- I think-“ He swallowed hard and when his eyes opened Bitty realized that they were shining with frustrated tears. It was easy to forget - his English was so good - but this argument wasn’t fair for Tater either. _Oh, Lord, this must be awful._

“Time out?” Bitty proposed, voice not entirely steady. His heart was still pounding but the thought of really fighting this out made him feel sick. 

“Yeah, okay. I’ll go get wood.” Tater made an aborted gesture as if to reach for his hand. Bitty reached out and took his instead, squeezing hard.

“You be careful, honey.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “We’re a team.”

Tater squeezed back. “Always, B.”

They separated, staying in sight of the camp but picking around opposite edges of it. Bitty’s heart rate slowed as he scanned the ground for green. The vegetation was sparse and what there was he mostly couldn’t identify. He was almost ready to give up when he saw what looked like sorrel. Bitty knelt beside it and took a tiny bite of one leaf. Definitely sorrel. He picked eagerly, taking about half the little patch and planting a stick in the ground so he could find the rest again. Oh, that would be nice.

Bitty walked back to the camp, where Tater already had a nice pile of wood started. Tater was at a birch tree, prying at something with his knife. Curious, Bitty moved closer. 

“What is it?”

“Chaga mushroom,” Tater said, pulling a piece free with one last good pry. “I don’t know what it is in English. For your hands.”

“Thank you, honey.” Bitty hugged him tight, laying his head against Tater’s chest. Tater’s arms wrapped around him and, God, even when they were still a little mad at each other and scared to death, it was impossible not to feel safe for the long moment they held each other. 

“We’ll be okay,” Tater said, lips brushing the top of his head.

“Of course we will, honey.” Bitty squeezed him tight. “I found some sorrel.”

Laughing in delight, Tater pulled away to look. “I didn’t even know in America you _have_ sorrel.”

“We surely do.” Bitty reached up to pop one of the tart leaves on his mouth. “That’ll be awfully nice to space out the berries with, won’t it?” He took one for himself, savoring the refreshing, lemon-y tang.

“Mm-hm.”

The sorrel held off the worst of the thirst while they walked. Still, midway through their final leg checking the southwest, Bitty managed to stumble over a root that never should have tripped him up. Tater, bless those defensive instincts, shot an arm out to steady Bitty like he was blocking a shot. 

“Thank you, honey.” Bitty swallowed, cursing himself. “I didn’t make you lose your sight trees, did you?”

“No, no. You okay, B?”

“I’m fine. Just kicking myself for being so clumsy. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, B.”

_Fifty fifth parallel my eye,_ Bitty thought, amused. That was an “I told you so” worthy of any church bake sale in Georgia. 

“Think you might be right about dehydration,” Bitty conceded, giving him a little one-armed hug.

Tater hugged him back. “Rationing’s smart too. If we end up waiting for rescue, don’t have to worry about falling down.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Bitty kept an arm around him as they walked back to camp. He needed the comfort. Whichever direction the trail was, chances were it was pretty far. And so was the nearest water.

The sun was starting to set when they got to work starting their little fire back up. With Tater’s ingenious rope method, it only took them a couple minutes to get a decent little blaze going. They dined on sorrel and checkerberry salad, but the skunk cabbage wasn’t dry enough to be safe yet. 

A small pine branch caught and filled the air with a pleasant, Christmas-y scent, and Tater sat up, snapping his fingers. “B, I’m go get- I don’t know what it’s called. While it’s light.”

“Okay, honey. Be careful. I’ll feed the fire.”

“I will.” Tater stood, squeezed his shoulder, and headed for the trees.

Bitty had a nice big fire going when he came back, carrying little strips of something white and fibrous and wiping his hands on his pants. 

“We can cook these. It’s, um, inside of pine tree, between bark and real wood.”

“I’ve never had that, can I- oh, it does feel nice.” Bitty turned the slice of pine between his fingers. It felt supple and meaty. But how to cook them? They didn’t feel like he could skewer them as easily as the mushrooms. They didn’t exactly have a pan, except- “If we move the water to your bottle, we can cook on mine.”

“Oh! Good idea, B.” Tater grabbed his cute little Falcs thermos and unscrewed the top. “Here, we can-“ he crumbled a little of the chaga mushroom into it. “It’s good tea for stomach, and keeps wounds clean, you can rub little on hands.”

All that was left was to pour from one to the other. But that step was terrifying. “Are your hands steady enough to pour, honey? Mine-“ Bitty held a shaking hand up, embarrassed.

Tater held a hand up beside his, trembling almost as badly. “I don’t trust myself.” His eyes lit on something. “I have idea.”

There was a big piece of birch near the fire and Tater knelt by it to cut a line in the bark and carefully peel a handspan wide ring off in one piece. Bitty watched, a smile growing on his face, as Tater curled it into a funnel. 

“Oh, honey, that’s brilliant.”

Tater grinned at him. “Very traditional. Next year, I win Ax Day for sure.”

Bitty poured slowly as Tater held the thermos and funnel steady.

“That’s where they got the sculptures, right?” 

“Right. And buildings too - we’ll win all categories.”

There was still a little water left in the stainless steel bottle when the thermos was as full as Bitty dared. “Maybe we should drink this now.”

Tater nodded. “Okay. We’ll drink this, save the rest.”

The cool mouthful was heaven. When Bitty handed Tater the bottle, he already felt about a million times better than he had all day. The vicarious pleasure watching Tater swallow and sigh was nearly as good. Lord, they’d needed that.

Bitty draped the slices of pine over the side of the bottle, sticky now from the resin on Tater’s fingers, and wedged it by the fire with a stick. 

They sat side by side, waiting for their pine to roast. The sky wasn’t so spectacular tonight, now there were clouds above them. “Maybe it’ll rain,” Bitty said, hopeful even though he was pretty sure their little shelter wasn’t waterproof. “Maybe we can catch some rainwater.” 

“We could line the basket with bark. Or your leaves.”

“Mm-hm.” Bitty leaned against him. “Seal the birch bark with that pine resin you got all over your hands. Can you tap pines for resin, or does it just ooze when you take the bark?”

Tater froze against him and Bitty looked up, alarmed.

“B. B, that’s it!” He hugged Bitty and kissed his cheek, grinning from ear to ear. “We can tap birch trees. Is right time of year, I’m sure we can.”

“Like maple trees?” Hope warmed him all over. 

With the firelight dancing on his face, Tater’s dark eyes seemed lit from within, as if the excitement were shining out of him. “Yeah. Not as sugary, but lots of sap. So tasty. Baba makes wine and syrup every year. Ugh, so expensive here, but I never have time to try making.” He grinned. “Guess we have time now.”

“What should the little spike thing look like?” He was already trying to think of how he could make a tube out here.

Tater sketched in the dirt, pausing so the two of them could pull the bottle out with sticks and flip what Bitty was coming to think of as their tree steaks. Once their makeshift pan was back in the fire, he went back to sketching. They could get away without a tube, Tater thought, but they needed a groove to guide the sap and a handle to hang his thermos off.

“I can carve that,” Bitty said, excited, “I’m sure I can, it can’t be much harder than the fire sticks.”

“I know you can,” said Tater, and the warm certainty in his voice made Bitty flush with pride. 

They pulled their tree steaks out of the fire, golden brown and slightly crisp around the edges. They could barely wait until it was cool enough to touch before digging in. 

Bitty passed it between his fingers, blowing on it, until he took a little bite. “Mmm!” It was starchy and slightly sweet, more substantial feeling than anything he’d had since their morels. He smudged a couple of their checkerberries on it for their next bite and it was like a pine and wintergreen scented thanksgiving dinner in spring. 

“Good like that?” 

Bitty nodded and Tater tried it too, with a satisfied hum of approval.

“We can get a lot of this,” Tater said, once he’d swallowed his bite. “Maybe tomorrow we have pine and sorrel soup.”

“Oh, honey, that sounds like heaven.” 

It was starting to get really chilly now. Bitty threw a couple more logs on the fire and snuggled up against Tater while they finished their dinner. 

“Let’s sleep,” Tater half-yawned. “Maybe dream of soup,” he added, while Bitty caught his yawn.

“Sounds good to me.” They crawled into bed same as the night before, spooned up close with Bitty’s jacket as a blanket. It was warm and cozy and, well, intimate. Not something they’d do if it were a heated motel room they were sharing instead of a lean-to in the middle of the woods. Bitty could feel Tater’s heartbeat and the soft, steady movement of his breathing against his back, and he knew it would lull him to sleep soon. 

“Goodnight, honey.”

“Goodnight, B.”

They had a big day ahead of them. It was only for the best it was so easy to fall asleep cuddled up in front of the fire.


End file.
